Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for Embodied AI (DEI4EAI)

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DEI4EAI project aims to critique and change the existing common and controversial norms and provide tangible resources for practicing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) when developing embodied AI.

We are a research collective coming from various disciplines, cultures, and gender identities. Our work focuses on the development, evaluation, and policy of embodied AI and is committed to promote a culture of diverse and inclusive embodied AI. We take a transdisciplinary approach: Going beyond disciplines and working with all relevant stakeholders to define a desirable future. Plus, we take a critical race and intersectional feminism lens to interpret and understand the complex dynamics of embodied AI in society and in the development of embodied AI.

We want to take action as academics, aware of the privileged role and powerful role that we have: We come from different positions of privilege and marginalization. We have had a range of experiences navigating issues related to diversity, equity and inclusion. Our experiences and outlooks cannot and do not represent everyone who shares a particular identity. We hope to engage in a meaningful conversation with the embodied AI community at large: listening and co-creating in a spirit of reflexivity. 

It’s time to work together.

 

We organize a series of workshops to raise awareness on DEI, assess practices, and define methods to design future embodied AI.

Join us to discern narratives, analyze the status quo, define future ways of working. The workshops will be hands-on and critical, and strive for openness and inclusivity.

We will learn together with experts and societal partners. DEI is what computer science, robotics, human-robot interaction, and human-computer interaction need to design the technology of the future we want to live in.

Next workshop:

19/11/2021, 14:00 (CET)

Stemming from an intersectional feminist perspective, the activities of this final workshop aim to raise awareness on the complexity of designing with diversity, equity and inclusion in mind. As a matter of fact, mainstream approaches in the design of technologies tend to marginalise populations characterised by some sort of diversity, whether they are women, an ethnic minority, or disabled people. And even when in place, traditional participatory methods often fail to achieve the desired inclusiveness as they fail to address the complexity and challenges that certain marginalised groups may face, hindering their ability to participate as equal partners in the design process.

Conscious about the impossibility of defining the ‘DE&I” toolkit, we will discuss desirable practices for designers engaged in the development of embodied AI systems.

 

Register

The project is funded by the 4TU NIRICT Diversity Funding.